Terrifier 3 Topping The Box Office is a good sign for American movies

Children are longing for excess! This weekend, Terrifier 3 topped the box office in the US, making its way to $21.5 million in four days despite only making $2 million. It beat out much bigger rivals like Joker: Folie à Deux, The Wild Robot and Transformers One, and undercut new release rivals like Saturday Night Live, Piece by Piece and The Apprentice. All this despite the fact that it's possibly the worst horror movie I've ever seen.

Terrifier 3 took Art The Clown's Brutal Kills to the top

If you haven't seen any of the Terrifier movies, the main thing you need to know is that they star a sadistic prankster named Art the Clown, a series about a Michelin-starred chef preparing food. These films, and the third film in particular, are violent in a way that is out of the mainstream of horror films and American films in general. If it were rated, it would almost certainly earn an NC-17.

However, it didn't rank, and the fact that it managed to win the weekend despite that official seal of approval is a sign that things may be starting to turn around in Hollywood. The MPA (known as the MPAA until 2019) oversaw the Hays Code from its creation in the 1930s until its dissolution in the late 1960s. When the Code's puritanical standards collapsed with the rise of New Hollywood, the MPA rating system took their place and still exists today.

When you see a movie rated, whether it's G or NC-17, it's because the MPA has watched it and reviewed its content. This is strongly preferable to the strictly enforced Hayes guidelines, which dictated that the good guys had to win, law enforcement had to be portrayed in a positive light, and interracial romances could not be shown. Age rating is better than censoring content for everyone.

But the problem with the MPA is that, somehow, it still censors content for everyone. There is an upper limit on how R-rated movies can be shown, and the MPA's weird standards keep certain parts of adult life off the screen.

Arguing is exactly what it means to be a little blunt, so if you don't want to read anything about human anatomy, check it out now.

Why is the MPA ranking important?

are they all gone Last chance? OK, so you can show genitalia in an R-rated movie, but there are strict limits on how those genitalia can be shown. Under the Skin got away with showing an erect penis, but it was short on a wide shot. This year's Knocked Up and The First Open featured open vaginas, but both are in the context of childbirth and thus partially blocked. The infamous shot from Basic Instinct, where Sharon Stone spreads her legs without underwear, is blink-and-you'll-miss-it. You can show a bowel movement and still get an R, but showing basic human anatomy is a fast track to NC-17.

As a teenager, I remember reading an interview with Jason Segel where he talked about how Sarah Marshall was naked in Forgetting and if her penis was even slightly erect, the movie could have gotten an NC-17. 16 years later it's still the same. Despite porn being more accessible than ever, movies still can't show these things in an artistic context without being branded with an NC-17 rating. And while you can basically say anything within the realm of an R, extreme violence (like Scary 3) can still earn you an NC-17 as well.

This may not seem important. So it's rated NC-17, who cares? Audiences, for the most part, don't. But being branded with this rating makes it much more difficult for the film to enter the cinema. The big chains don't want the hassle, and that keeps the movie from playing on the screens it needs to be profitable. For a film's commercial prospects, it's a kiss of death.

Or at least it was. Terrifier 3 is not rated NC-17 because it is not rated at all. If it were rated, its extremely intense, sadistic, and bloody scenes would probably earn it an NC-17. So, why do theaters carry it?

I saw someone on reddit speculate that it was a result of covid, and I think that's a likely explanation. More than four years after the first quarantine, theaters are still trying to bring their audiences back to 2019 levels. That means being less sensitive to the product they're showing, which means a horror movie like Terrifier 3 can play in thousands of theaters across the country. Another factor is current. Broadcasters can put out NC-17 or unrated stuff without fuss, and theaters can't be too proud to keep their audiences.

Although theaters have been supported in this situation, this is a positive development. It's a good thing that filmmakers are free to make the movies they want, even if it gets them an NC-17 rating. And Terrifier 3 proves that the audience is there, even if the content is extreme.